by Erin Raegan
Chyn stiffened then and misted an inch from the Juldo’s face, ripping the stranger’s hood from his face.
“You recognize me?”
Chyn blinked at him a moment. Frozen. Then he sighed. “No, but I know where you come from.”
The Juldo flipped the blade fast, pressing it to Chyn’s neck. “Tell me.”
“Brother,” Chyn whispered in warning, “I owe your father a debt, but if you do not lower that blade, that debt is forfeit.”
The Juldo stiffened and backed away.
Chyn looked him over, more pity filling his gaze. “You know of the Latari. You may not be Latari, but that is only because the Bour wiped it from you.”
The Juldo looked at his hands. All the red was smooth. Not a blemish. So clean compared to the other Juldo around him. He wasn’t suffering the physical effects of the other Juldo. “My father?”
Chyn nodded.
“Tell me.”
Chyn nodded to Lyno and the Juldo peeled away from me, leaving the room without a word. I stood still, unsure if I was supposed to go, but Chyn walked to me and took my hand.
Chyn looked at the Juldo. “Come with me.”
We misted away and I was unprepared for it. Chyn hadn’t given me his usual warning. I gasped, stumbling away from him. Chyn lifted me in his arms and set me on a large chair behind a long table. I gagged, hunching over as he rubbed my back, murmuring an apology. I wiped my face and sat back, sucking in short breaths.
The Juldo stood behind Chyn, watching us.
Chyn walked away and filled a bowl of water, which he handed to me before he turned to the Juldo. “Your name is Vex.”
23
Chyn
Five thousand years ago on a deserted mining planet.
“Prow, my brother, fight them,” Chyn urged.
Prow chuckled menacingly. “It is too late, fool. Don’t fight so hard.” He grinned, thrusting the blade against Chyn’s throat. “The surrender is euphoric.”
Chyn looked for his brother in this stranger’s gaze. But he was gone. Wails of pain and horror met Chyn’s ear, and he knew Dordyn was right. Prow could not be saved. One Bour had stolen Prow’s son’s life. Not these mothers. Not these farmers. They were innocent.
Pain and regret stole Chyn’s breath and he wavered, allowing Prow to slice deep into Chyn’s bared neck. He allowed the blood to well as satisfaction filled Prow’s gaze.
Chyn wrapped his arm around Prow’s head, thrusting their bent heads together. “I’m sorry, brother. I will meet you with the gods.”
Prow bared his teeth savagely as Chyn thrust his dagger through his brother’s heart. Chyn held him as the life leaked from Prow’s eyes.
As he lost the last of his Latari brothers.
He held him in the center of his brother’s chaos. The Bour weeping for their lost.
It was there that Dordyn found him.
“I am sorry,” Dordyn whispered, kneeling beside Prow and bowing his head.
Chyn rolled to his feet and lifted his brother’s body. “I am the last.”
Dordyn nodded warily.
“Do not look for me.”
Chyn misted away to Latari, where he laid his brother to rest beside the grave of his pair and the stone they had carved for their son. A body was never recovered. Bour were carnivores, and though Prow had looked for his son, too much time had passed. The Bour that had taken his son had long since died. But Prow had never stopped looking, afraid his son had somehow survived and was wandering the stars alone.
“I will continue your search, brother,” he vowed.
Chyn looked over the sea of graves.
Every last one of his Latari brothers, every last one of his Shadow Born brothers laid to rest by his own hands before him, and he allowed his pain to swallow the life from him.
24
London
I wiped my soaked face, looking away from Chyn’s pain. I wanted nothing more than to hold him, but he was shaking as he looked at the Juldo and told him how he had killed his father. And all the Shadow Born before him.
“My name?”
“Vex,” Chyn rasped. “Your mother named you.”
Vex nodded. “My father could not be saved?”
Chyn winced and looked away. “Not at the expense of so many.” All those Bour. I didn’t know a ton about them but Chyn said Vex’s father was just slaughtering thousands of them. Innocents. Not all of them were responsible for the loss of Vex. I could see why Chyn killed him but watching Chyn tell Vex that story, I could see how much it hurt him to do it.
“How have you not succumbed to the same madness?”
Chyn shook his head. “Solitude. Meditation, and a counter strain of the virus Dordyn developed.”
“You returned to the master after you left?”
“Dordyn found me.” Chyn rubbed his face. “I was near lost to the madness, prepared to take my own life.”
“And so you became the assassin.”
Chyn looked at me, his eyes tracking my tears. “After the loss of my brothers, I could not face my creations. The Juldo as you know them to be now, were a mistake I made in coming here so long ago. I infected them in my recklessness. And after the loss of Prow, I feared I would one day take their lives as well. Instead I hunted their enemies. Dordyn was betrayed by a new master. He was killed without honor. But he too was my creation. I could no longer stand what the Juldo had become and retreated once more, coming only when they called, and only at the urging of the gods. Too much time and the supplements began to fail me. Death and pain was all I knew.”
“She is your pair?”
Chyn nodded again, avoiding my eyes. “She is now the only way I have been able to keep them at bay.”
“I survived the Bour,” Vex muttered.
Chyn looked him over. “You have.”
“Why do I not suffer from the madness?”
Chyn shook his head. “You are the only one of your generation. The second to the original Shadow Born. You are far more evolved, though there is no telling when it may take you over.”
“I have served Viytenus since I came of age,” Vex said. “He was my king.”
“I suspected,” Chyn growled. “Where is he?”
“In hiding.”
Chyn sighed. “He knows I am searching for him.”
“How long have you known I lived?”
“I’ve been searching for you since you showed yourself on the Dahk’s world, but I could not have known. The Bour have infected you. I cannot connect to you as I once did with my brothers.”
Vex fisted his hands. “They know I’m here.”
Chyn grinned. “I had hoped you would bring them to my door.”
“You knew I would come?”
“I hoped. Why did you leave?”
“I want his head for my own.” Vex ignored Chyn’s question and turned to the door and looked at the sky. “I’ll leave his legion for you.”
I looked up, an ominous shiver rolling down my spine. Legion? A legion of Bour? Here?
Chyn bowed. “Very well.”
Vex disappeared, and Chyn watched the spot he had stood for a long time.
I had so many questions, but I knew it wasn’t the time.
Three ships now hovered over Juldoris.
Chyn walked me outside and sent Lyno to the Juldo army with instructions.
“Why are they here?” I asked, watching the ships slowly enter the atmosphere.
“Because I have shielded Juldoris from them for thousands of years. Vex revealed it to them the moment he stepped onto our soil.”
“But why are they attacking at all?” I knew about the Galactic Council now, and that this Viytenus had started this war along with the Juldo Master that Chyn had killed. But I didn’t understand anything else. Bour were here, but also on Home World? Why both places?
Chyn chuckled. “Their leader, Viytenus, is a coward. The Dahk king is battling only a distraction.”
“That’s why you wouldn’t help them,” I m
uttered. “Most of the Bour were coming here.”
“I will meet them in battle here. Give my brothers something to claim for their own for a purpose far greater than greed.”
“They know about the Shadow Born and Prow?”
Chyn lifted my chin and pressed his lips to my ear. “I do not keep secrets from my brothers. They have not forgotten my Shadow Born and their sacrifice.”
Chyn looked behind me and I turned as Vyr appeared, walking to us.
“Go with him,” Chyn whispered.
“What?”
“Battle is no place for you.”
“Where will you be?” I asked, nervously picking at my ivory silk top.
Chyn grinned, flashing his sharp teeth. “Too old for war, but not revenge.”
25
The Bour
On a distant planet long forgotten.
The Bour descended on the Juldo, foolishly believing they had caught the war-mongering species unawares. Their leader was curiously missing as they prepared to take the planet from the new master. But their leader had not told them of the Shadow Born. The Bour leader, Viytenus, had callously sent them to their deaths in fear for his own life.
The quiet system of Bour, deep in the darkness of space, watched on from a distance, celebrating the defeat of the Bour armies. For Viytenus had been cast out of his home planet long ago for his tyranny. Those lower classed in the Bour hierarchy lived peaceful lives after their ancestors brought the Shadow Born to their horizon. The Shadow Born had once come for them for the crimes of their leader. Those Bour that remembered now celebrated their cast out Leader’s defeat.
For they too had suffered by their own Bour hands. Prow and the other Shadow Born had only done what the lesser Bour wanted for so long.
So now they watched on as the Shadow Born Master and his Juldo ended millennia of Viytenus’ and his most loyal followers’ reign of terror and destruction on the darkest corners of the universe.
The Juldo fought hard and with honor, using the Bour’s ability to invade minds against them as they had done so long ago when the Shadow Born ripped the Juldoris infection from their minds. For the Bour had found Latari so long ago, searching for the Juldo vines that blossomed deep in the pits of the most hellish of galaxies. The Bour had devoured the vines from their own world, causing their own mutation.
Now with the end of the Bour leader and his armies, the peaceful sector of the Bour home world could eradicate the Juldo vine’s infestation and drift off into a new era of peace and solitude.
26
Chyn
Chyn stalked through the battle camps on Juldoris. His brothers, his children, were prepared to take on the Bour.
They had been since before Chyn claimed the throne. He had prepared them for what was to come, sharing his knowledge of the Bour and Chyn’s violent past with the species’ leader, sharing all of it with his brothers.
Vyr was the only of his children still left without that knowledge. Chyn had debated for long endless nights if he should share all that had come to pass and all that would with this war.
Chyn had suspected with the old cowardly master that he had aligned with Viytenus but he was at first unwilling to believe it. Unwilling to accept it.
Chyn, even now was ashamed of his actions and choice to ignore what was coming. He hadn’t wanted to drag himself from the darkness. He hadn’t wanted to leave his life of solitude. But he had been changing for some time now. Perhaps since he took Vyr to Latari.
He was no longer the assassin that sat idly by while his Juldo brothers became more and more lost to their greed and selfishness. But it could be ignored no longer. He was their master now, perhaps he should have taken the throne long ago, but the gods would have used that position against him.
But now? With London? He could give his brothers what he could not before. His guidance. His love and his protection.
So he looked to the skies and the Bour army descending on Juldoris. The army that so foolishly believed they could take on the Juldo and their Shadow Born Master.
Did they know their leader fled the moment Vex defected his rule? Did they know he now ran from Chyn’s brother? Did they suspect this attack would lead to nothing but their defeat?
It did not matter to Chyn. They still came and so with his brothers—no, his children—at his side, Chyn prepared for the bloody battle ahead.
27
Uthyf
Home World
I looked to my commander as he walked to the front of the ship.
“This is not what I expected,” he muttered quietly.
We stood on Dahk One, protecting our home as my army’s small fighter ships lined up to halt the incoming Bour ships.
I shook my head in disbelief. “There are so many. How have we not encountered them in the past?” There were hundreds of small ships converging on us. Had there truly been such a great force below Viytenus, surely, we would know more about the Bour. I did not think it was possible to hide such a large army.
Tahk huffed angrily. “Even still, where are their battle ships? They cannot defeat us with these small things.” He waved at the army of small ships. They were much smaller than even my own fighters. This was not a fair fight, no matter their numbers, this would not take long to end.
“What of Earth and the Kilbus Lord?” I asked him.
Tahk glared at me a moment in silence. He did not like my close comradery with Kil. Of which I did not cast blame. He believed the Kilbus Lord assassinated my father, but I knew he did not. Tahk would learn that on his own.
He finally relented and looked away. “The Order’s force is great and the Kilbus Lord had kept them back from Earth for some time but it is as if they had not been hit with their full force.” He looked back to me gravely. “Not until now. If what Vyr says is true and the Bour are also attacking Juldoris, then Viytenus has orchestrated a coordinated attack on us, Earth, as well as Juldoris.”
I hissed. “Why do this? Why attack all at once.”
Tahk sighed. “To keep us divided. We cannot call for aid.”
“Viytenus cannot truly believe he will defeat all of us this way. A singular attack from his full army is the only way.”
Vyr stepped forward then from behind. “Viytenus is no longer leading them. His last order was to send his armies. They have not received word since then. They are unsure what else to do but follow it.”
“How do you know this?” Tahk demanded.
Vyr looked away and out to the Bour army. “Chyn knows more than he has let on.”
I cursed. “The Bour would never have been able to penetrate the minds of my Dahk if he had shared his knowledge of their mind control before. We now have the antidote and counteragent but at what cost?”
Vyr glared. “Do not forget, king, that he had once had a mind to take your life. Be thankful he shared the Bour’s stem and the knowledge at all.”
“And to think had I allowed Ignyt to take the Bour’s head as he had wanted, we may never have known,” Tahk muttered.
It took Gryo quite some time to even decipher what Chyn had alleged. And even longer still to learn to utilize it.
“Why does he not come for me,” I demanded. The assassin once swore he would come for me. I had been prepared to battle him but he never came. And now he wanted to trade in exchange for the Bour’s stem and the knowledge it provided?
Vyr sighed and looked off. “The assassin has changed.”
Tahk and I looked to Vyr with heavy skepticism.
He chuckled bleakly. “Maybe not changed. But what drove him to unseat you and every other ruler in the past does not drive him now.” He narrowed his eyes on me. “Be thankful, Uthyf. You do not want Chyn to come anywhere near you or your throne.”
My jaw stiffened with frustration.
I did not understand the assassin and his strange behavior as of late. Perhaps it was wise to accept his new rule on Juldoris and accede his manipulation and use it for my own advantage.
An alliance with th
e Juldo had not been seen since before my father’s rule. It would truly bring about a powerful coalition. A coalition that would be necessary as Viytenus tore apart the Galactic Order.
If the Juldo followed their new leader and joined us instead of continuing their deplorable acts of violence… well along with my Dahk and our other alliances, we may just be able to restore some semblance of order after this farce was finished.
And I had heard. Word had traveled from Juldoris and the other slave sectors. The Juldo had already begun making changes under the orders of the assassin ruler.
His demand of the Juldo to eradicate slavery had shaken many factions all across the universe. Slavers were suffering in their trade without the Juldo’s assistance—rightfully so.
I would not walk blindly hand in hand with the new Juldo Master, but perhaps my faith was better put into Vyr and his trust that his Juldo brother was on the brink of a change in character that could not only benefit me and my Dahk, but many other species.
But that was not for now. Now, we had a war to finish. As did my Mohna’s humans, the Kilbus Lord, and unnervingly, the Shadow Born Assassin turned Juldo Master.
28
The Kilbus Lord
Earth
“Never fear, the Kilbus Lord is here,” I thundered dryly as I entered the main deck.
“Where have you been?” Burin demanded as I met him at the helm of my warship.
My fists curled at my sides, my claws piercing the thick hide there. The accusation in his voice frayed what little patience I had barely managed to hang on to. “You know where.”
Burin sighed. “We can’t afford to have you running off right now,” he muttered, his human skin flushing deep red.
